Alright, so I'm all for gross-out, mindless fodder, especially when David Wain writes it. That being said, Wanderlust is more like one hour and thirty-eight minutes of perverse strangeness that, rather than making you feel like you've taken the same peyote as Jennifer Aniston's character, Linda, you'll feel more like taking a scalding hot shower to cleanse your mind and body from this moviegoing experience.

The premise of the film alone is rather thin, hinging on Linda and George (Paul Rudd) as a Manhattan couple looking to buy property in the West Village (best suited for chic gay men and affluent single white females), in spite of that property being a "micro-loft" a.k.a. a studio apartment. Although they both have misgivings about making such a huge investment with rather uncertain career paths (George is waiting on a bonus, Linda is waiting for HBO to pick up her documentary about penguins), the allure of the West Village is too powerful to ignore.

After packing themselves and their furniture into the sardine can, George and Linda are both doled out heavy blows to what they assumed were burgeoning careers: The CEO of George's company is arrested and the executives at HBO show little enthusiasm about a tale of penguins with testicular cancer. With their finances in disarray, the pair tries to talk to their real estate broker about reselling the property at a loss, but she essentially laughs in their face, saying that no one is interested in buying a studio apartment (a label that prompts George to say he knew it wasn't really a micro-loft).

With no one to turn to except George's douche bag of a brother, Rick (Ken Marino), for shelter, the couple grudgingly leaves the not so fair city of New York to head to Atlanta. Along the way, they decide to stop at the closest "hotel" available to them, Elysium (where the overt hippie slogan is, "Dreams dispensed daily, bring your own cup"). Greeted by a nudist named Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio), George and Linda are initially averse to the bizarre nature of those who live on the commune--or what they call "intentional community." A few inhalations of the best pot they've ever smoked changes that perception right away.

http://youtu.be/Oz7xMY1AbbI

The next morning, everyone, including Seth (Justin Theroux), their--for lack of a better word--leader, helps George and Linda turn their car right side up (George flipped it the night before in an attempt to escape Wayne's nudity by backing out of the woods at an indelible speed). Seth then suggests that they should stay. George and Linda politely decline and carry out their original plan to go to Rick's.

The only truly amusing part of the movie is provided by this one subplot of the film, the daily life of Rick's wife, Marisa (Michaela Watkins). Her lines are, hands down, among the best of the film, particularly, "I have mixed feelings about being a parent." Unfortunately, when Linda and George decide to go back to the commune because of Rick's assholery, our brief time with Marisa is cut far too short. Other than that, everything is awkwardly absurd to an extreme degree (and not in the good Wet Hot American Summer sort of way), rendering the movie not even remotely palatable (e.g. Lauren Ambrose playing the pregnant Almond--yes, Almond--and birthing her own baby by pulling it out of her vagina, Kourtney Kardashian style). As for Jennifer Aniston's chemistry with Paul Rudd, one would think that after working together on eighteen episodes of Friends and on the 1998 movie The Object of My Affection (actually much easier to watch than Wanderlust), there would be a more visible rapport. There isn't.

In fact, about the only element of Wanderlust that will make you feel like you haven't lost precious minutes of your life is the scenes shared by David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black. I'm proposing to Judd Apatow to produce a spinoff of this movie based solely on the three of them as the newscasters they played in Wanderlust. Also, cast Fred Armisen in it since he was originally supposed to play the character of Wayne.